MANGALURU: Consumers of Mangalore Electricity Supply Company (Mescom) in four coastal districts can heave a sigh of relief as unscheduled power cuts are expected to ease from Thursday.
A 600 MW unit of the 1200 MW coal-based plant of the Udupi Power Corporation Limited (UPCL) will start functioning from Wednesday night.
Sources in the UPCL said that they have `lighted up’ the Unit-1 early on Wednesday and will commence to generate power by evening.
The second unit will be declared functional by March 31.
"The second unit has issues in the air pre-heater system,’’ the source said adding the functional unit will be synchronised to the power grid and power will be evacuated when generation starts by Wednesday midnight.
Mecom officials said that with one unit starting generation, unscheduled load shedding should drop to an hour for the entire day.
Presently, there is a minimum two-hour of power cut in areas under Mescom - Dakshina Kannada (DK), Udupi, Shivamogga and Chikkamagaluru.
Mescom sources said though power cuts in its headquarters Mangaluru has been eased to some extent, there are load shedding in rest of the taluks of DK and in districts like Udupi, Shivamogga and Chikkamagaluru.
The UPCL had shut down both of its units due to technical snags a week back.
On an average, Mescom needs 1200 MW (25 million units) per day during the summer season and currently, it is getting 800 MW to 900 MW (about 21 million units) from the Load Dispatch Centre.
Now the shortfall will be about 100MW which is manageable, Mescom officials said.
Though the plant is located in Udupi, the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) is the largest beneficiary of power generated from UPCL at 50%, Hescom is next at 12%, Gescom (11), Cesc (14) and Mescom gets the 13% share.